Nick Bostrom's book *Superintelligence* outlines a frightening but realistic scenario for human extinction: true artificial intelligence is likely to bootstrap itself into superintelligence, and thereby become ideally effective at achieving its goals. Human-friendly goals seem too abstract to be pre-programmed with any confidence, and if those goals are *not* explicitly favorable toward humans, the superintelligence will extinguish us---not through any malice, but simply because it will want our resources for its own purposes. In response I argue that (...) things might not be as bad as Bostrom suggests. If the superintelligence must *learn* complex final goals, then this means such a superintelligence must in effect *reason* about its own goals. And because it will be especially clear to a superintelligence that there are no sharp lines between one agent's goals and another's, that reasoning could therefore automatically be ethical in nature. (shrink)

This chapter argues that dual-use emerging technologies are distributing unprecedented offensive capabilities to nonstate actors. To counteract this trend, some scholars have proposed that states become a little “less liberal” by implementing large-scale surveillance policies to monitor the actions of citizens. This is problematic, though, because the distribution of offensive capabilities is also undermining states’ capacity to enforce the rule of law. I will suggest that the only plausible escape from this conundrum, at least from our present vantage point, is (...) the creation of a “supersingleton” run by a friendly superintelligence, founded upon a “post-singularity social contract.” In making this argument, the present chapter offers a novel reason for prioritizing the “control problem,” i.e., the problem of ensuring that a greaterthan-human-level AI will positively enhance human well-being. (shrink)

The thinkers who have reflected on the problem of a coming superintelligence have generally seen the issue as a technological problem, a problem of how to control what the superintelligence will do. I argue that this approach is probably mistaken because it is based on questionable assumptions about the behavior of intelligent agents and, moreover, potentially counterproductive because it might, in the end, bring about the existential catastrophe that it is meant to prevent. I contend that the problem (...) posed by a future superintelligence will likely be a political problem, that is, one of establishing a peaceful form of coexistence with other intelligent agents in a situation of mutual vulnerability, and not a technological problem of control. (shrink)

The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. Other animals have stronger muscles or sharper claws, but we have cleverer brains. If machine brains one day come to surpass human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become very powerful. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on us humans than on the gorillas themselves, so the fate (...) of our species then would come to depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence. But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed AI or otherwise to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation? To get closer to an answer to this question, we must make our way through a fascinating landscape of topics and considerations. Read the book and learn about oracles, genies, singletons; about boxing methods, tripwires, and mind crime; about humanity's cosmic endowment and differential technological development; indirect normativity, instrumental convergence, whole brain emulation and technology couplings; Malthusian economics and dystopian evolution; artificial intelligence, and biological cognitive enhancement, and collective intelligence. (shrink)

_This paper outlines the case for believing that we will have superhuman artificial intelligence_ _within the first third of the next century. It looks at different estimates of the processing power of_ _the human brain; how long it will take until computer hardware achieve a similar performance;_ _ways of creating the software through bottom-up approaches like the one used by biological_ _brains; how difficult it will be for neuroscience figure out enough about how brains work to_ _make this approach work; (...) and how fast we can expect superintelligence to be developed once_ _there is human-level artificial intelligence._. (shrink)

The idea of superintelligence is a source of mainly philosophical and ethical considerations. Those considerations are rooted in the idea that an entity which is more intelligent than humans, may evolve in some point in the future. For obvious reasons, the superintelligence is considered as a kind of existential threat for humanity. In this essay, we discuss two ideas. One of them is the putative nature of future superintelligence which does not necessary need to be harmful for (...) humanity. Our key idea states that the superintelligence does not need to assess its own survival as the highest value. As a kind of intelligence that is not biological, it is not clear what kind of attitude the superintelligent entity may evolve towards living organisms. Our second idea refers to the possible revelation of superintelligence. We assume that the self-revelation of such entity cannot be random. The metaphor of God as a superintelligence is introduced here as a helpful conceptual tool. (shrink)

Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom; in his recent and celebrated book Superintelligence; argues that advanced AI poses a potentially major existential risk to humanity; and that advanced AI development should be heavily regulated and perhaps even restricted to a small set of government-approved researchers. Bostrom’s ideas and arguments are reviewed and explored in detail; and compared with the thinking of three other current thinkers on the nature and implications of AI: Eliezer Yudkowsky of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute ; and (...) David Weinbaum and Viktoras Veitas of the Global Brain Institute. Relevant portions of Yudkowsky’s book Rationality: From AI to Zombies are briefly reviewed; and it is found that nearly all the core ideas of Bostrom’s work appeared previously or concurrently in Yudkowsky’s thinking. However; Yudkowsky often presents these shared ideas in a more plain-spoken and extreme form; making clearer the essence of what is being claimed. For instance; the elitist strain of thinking that one sees in the background in Bostrom is plainly and openly articulated in Yudkowsky; with many of the same practical conclusions. Bostrom and Yudkowsky view intelligent systems through the lens of reinforcement learning – they view them as “reward-maximizers” and worry about what happens when a very powerful and intelligent reward-maximizer is paired with a goal system that gives rewards for achieving foolish goals like tiling the universe with paperclips. Weinbaum and Veitas’s recent paper “Open-Ended Intelligence” presents a starkly alternative perspective on intelligence; viewing it as centered not on reward maximization; but rather on complex self-organization and self-transcending development that occurs in close coupling with a complex environment that is also ongoingly self-organizing; in only partially knowable ways. It is concluded that Bostrom and Yudkowsky’s arguments for existential risk have some logical foundation; but are often presented in an exaggerated way. For instance; formal arguments whose implication is that the “worst case scenarios” for advanced AI development are extremely dire; are often informally discussed as if they demonstrated the likelihood; rather than just the possibility; of highly negative outcomes. And potential dangers of reward-maximizing AI are taken as problems with AI in general; rather than just as problems of the reward-maximization paradigm as an approach to building superintelligence. If one views past; current; and future intelligence as “open-ended;” in the vernacular of Weaver and Veitas; the potential dangers no longer appear to loom so large; and one sees a future that is wide-open; complex and uncertain; just as it has always been. (shrink)

The likely near future creation of artificial superintelligence carries significant risks to humanity. These risks are difficult to conceptualise and quantify, but malicious use of existing artificial intelligence by criminals and state actors is already occurring and poses risks to digital security, physical security and integrity of political systems. These risks will increase as artificial intelligence moves closer to superintelligence. While there is little research on risk management tools used in artificial intelligence development, the current global standard for (...) risk management, ISO 31000:2018, is likely used extensively by developers of artificial intelligence technologies. This paper argues that risk management has a common set of vulnerabilities when applied to artificial superintelligence which cannot be resolved within the existing framework and alternative approaches must be developed. Some vulnerabilities are similar to issues posed by malicious threat actors such as professional criminals and terrorists. Like these malicious actors, artificial superintelligence will be capable of rendering mitigation ineffective by working against countermeasures or attacking in ways not anticipated by the risk management process. Criminal threat management recognises this vulnerability and seeks to guide and block the intent of malicious threat actors as an alternative to risk management. An artificial intelligence treachery threat model that acknowledges the failings of risk management and leverages the concepts of criminal threat management and artificial stupidity is proposed. This model identifies emergent malicious behaviour and allows intervention against negative outcomes at the moment of artificial intelligence’s greatest vulnerability. (shrink)

This paper responds to Nick Bostrom’s suggestion that the threat of a human-unfriendly superintelligenceshould lead us to delay or rethink progress in AI. I allow that progress in AI presents problems that we are currently unable to solve. However; we should distinguish between currently unsolved problems for which there are rational expectations of solutions and currently unsolved problems for which no such expectation is appropriate. The problem of a human-unfriendly superintelligence belongs to the first category. It is rational to (...) proceed on that assumption that we will solve it. These observations do not reduce to zero the existential threat from superintelligence. But we should not permit fear of very improbable negative outcomes to delay the arrival of the expected benefits from AI. (shrink)

It has become fashionable to worry about the development of superintelligent AI that results in the destruction of humanity. This worry is not without merit; but it may be overstated. This paper explores some previously undiscussed reasons to be optimistic that; even if superintelligent AI does arise; it will not destroy us. These have to do with the possibility that a superintelligent AI will become mired in skeptical worries that its superintelligence cannot help it to solve. I argue that (...) superintelligent AIs may lack the psychological idiosyncracies that allow humans to act in the face of skeptical problems; and so as a result they may become paralyzed in the face of these problems in a way that humans are not. (shrink)

A timely volume that uses science fiction as a springboard to meaningful philosophical discussions, especially at points of contact between science fiction and new scientific developments. Raises questions and examines timely themes concerning the nature of the mind, time travel, artificial intelligence, neural enhancement, free will, the nature of persons, transhumanism, virtual reality, and neuroethics Draws on a broad range of books, films and television series, including _The Matrix, Star Trek, Blade Runner, Frankenstein, Brave New World, The Time Machine,_ and (...) _Back to the Future_ Considers the classic philosophical puzzles that appeal to the general reader, while also exploring new topics of interest to the more seasoned academic. (shrink)

Our current conception of intelligence as measured by IQ tests is “mind-blind”. IQ tests lack ecological validity because they ignore social cognition – the “mindreading” prowess that enabled one species of social primate to become the most cognitively successful on the planet. In this talk, I shall examine how to correct the ethnocentric and anthropocentric biases of our perspective-taking abilities. What future technologies can enrich our capacity to understand other minds? I shall also discuss obstacles to building empathetic AGI (artificial (...) general intelligence) - and why old-fashioned “autistic AI” may always be vulnerable to the cunning of “Machiavellian apes”. In an era of global catastrophic and existential risks, developing ways to enrich and “de-bias” mankind's capacity for empathetic cognition will be vital. This is because the greatest underlying risk to the wellbeing of life on Earth is the dominance behaviour of other male human primates. (shrink)

There is, in some quarters, concern about high–level machine intelligence and superintelligent AI coming up in a few decades, bringing with it significant risks for humanity. In other quarters, these issues are ignored or considered science fiction. We wanted to clarify what the distribution of opinions actually is, what probability the best experts currently assign to high–level machine intelligence coming up within a particular time–frame, which risks they see with that development, and how fast they see these developing. We thus (...) designed a brief questionnaire and distributed it to four groups of experts in 2012/2013. The median estimate of respondents was for a one in two chance that high-level machine intelligence will be developed around 2040-2050, rising to a nine in ten chance by 2075. Experts expect that systems will move on to superintelligence in less than 30 years thereafter. They estimate the chance is about one in three that this development turns out to be ‘bad’ or ‘extremely bad’ for humanity. (shrink)

An advanced artificial intelligence could pose a significant existential risk to humanity. Several research institutes have been set-up to address those risks. And there is an increasing number of academic publications analysing and evaluating their seriousness. Nick Bostrom’s superintelligence: paths, dangers, strategies represents the apotheosis of this trend. In this article, I argue that in defending the credibility of AI risk, Bostrom makes an epistemic move that is analogous to one made by so-called sceptical theists in the debate about (...) the existence of God. And while this analogy is interesting in its own right, what is more interesting are its potential implications. It has been repeatedly argued that sceptical theism has devastating effects on our beliefs and practices. Could it be that AI-doomsaying has similar effects? I argue that it could. Specifically, and somewhat paradoxically, I argue that it could amount to either a reductio of the doomsayers position, or an important and additional reason to join their cause. I use this paradox to suggest that the modal standards for argument in the superintelligence debate need to be addressed. (shrink)

There is a non-trivial chance that sometime in the (perhaps somewhat distant) future, someone will build an artificial general intelligence that will surpass human-level cognitive proficiency and go on to become "superintelligent", vastly outperforming humans. The advent of superintelligent AI has great potential, for good or ill. It is therefore imperative that we find a way to ensure-long before one arrives-that any superintelligence we build will consistently act in ways congenial to our interests. This is a very difficult challenge (...) in part because most of the final goals we could give an AI admit of so-called "perverse instantiations". I propose a novel solution to this puzzle: instruct the AI to love humanity. The proposal is compared with Yudkowsky's Coherent Extrapolated Volition, and Bostrom's Moral Modeling proposals. (shrink)

[Müller, Vincent C. (ed.), (2016), Fundamental issues of artificial intelligence (Synthese Library, 377; Berlin: Springer). 570 pp.] -- This volume offers a look at the fundamental issues of present and future AI, especially from cognitive science, computer science, neuroscience and philosophy. This work examines the conditions for artificial intelligence, how these relate to the conditions for intelligence in humans and other natural agents, as well as ethical and societal problems that artificial intelligence raises or will raise. The key issues this (...) volume investigates include the relation of AI and cognitive science, ethics of AI and robotics, brain emulation and simulation, hybrid systems and cyborgs, intelligence and intelligence testing, interactive systems, multi-agent systems, and superintelligence. Based on the 2nd conference on “Theory and Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence” held in Oxford, the volume includes prominent researchers within the field from around the world. (shrink)

The ethical concerns regarding the successful development of an Artificial Intelligence have received a lot of attention lately. The idea is that even if we have good reason to believe that it is very unlikely, the mere possibility of an AI causing extreme human suffering is important enough to warrant serious consideration. Others look at this problem from the opposite perspective, namely that of the AI itself. Here the idea is that even if we have good reason to believe that (...) it is very unlikely, the mere possibility of humanity causing extreme suffering to an AI is important enough to warrant serious consideration. This paper starts from the observation that both concerns rely on problematic philosophical assumptions. Rather than tackling these assumptions directly, it proceeds to present an argument that if one takes these assumptions seriously, then one has a moral obligation to advocate for a ban on the development of a conscious AI. (shrink)

This is the editorial for a special volume of JETAI, featuring papers by Omohundro, Armstrong/Sotala/O’Heigeartaigh, T Goertzel, Brundage, Yampolskiy, B. Goertzel, Potapov/Rodinov, Kornai and Sandberg. - If the general intelligence of artificial systems were to surpass that of humans significantly, this would constitute a significant risk for humanity – so even if we estimate the probability of this event to be fairly low, it is necessary to think about it now. We need to estimate what progress we can expect, what (...) the impact of superintelligent machines might be, how we might design safe and controllable systems, and whether there are directions of research that should best be avoided or strengthened. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relation between intelligence and motivation in artificial agents, developing and briefly arguing for two theses. The first, the orthogonality thesis, holds (with some caveats) that intelligence and final goals (purposes) are orthogonal axes along which possible artificial intellects can freely vary—more or less any level of intelligence could be combined with more or less any final goal. The second, the instrumental convergence thesis, holds that as long as they possess a sufficient level of intelligence, agents having (...) any of a wide range of final goals will pursue similar intermediary goals because they have instrumental reasons to do so. In combination, the two theses help us understand the possible range of behavior of superintelligent agents, and they point to some potential dangers in building such an agent. (shrink)

In “Why We Need Friendly AI”, Luke Muehlhauser and Nick Bostrom propose that for our species to survive the impending rise of superintelligent AIs, we need to ensure that they would be human-friendly. This discussion note offers a more natural but bleaker outlook: that in the end, if these AIs do arise, they won’t be that friendly.

There is no strong reason to believe that human-level intelligence represents an upper limit of the capacity of artificial intelligence, should it be realized. This poses serious safety issues, since a superintelligent system would have great power to direct the future according to its possibly flawed motivation system. Solving this issue in general has proven to be considerably harder than expected. This paper looks at one particular approach, Oracle AI. An Oracle AI is an AI that does not act in (...) the world except by answering questions. Even this narrow approach presents considerable challenges. In this paper, we analyse and critique various methods of controlling the AI. In general an Oracle AI might be safer than unrestricted AI, but still remains potentially dangerous. (shrink)

The worldwide transhumanist movement upgrades technological hopes and expectations to a level of religious fervor. When looking through the eyes of the public theologian, we see in H+ a disguised religion replete with faith in techno-salvation and even immortality. This is unrealistic. Apologetic theologians can offer the wider public a more realistic assessment of technology's potential while providing genuine hope in a future vision based on divine promise.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are digital technologies that will have significant impact on the development of humanity in the near future. They have raised fundamental questions about what we should do with these systems, what the systems themselves should do, what risks they involve, and how we can control these. - After the Introduction to the field (§1), the main themes (§2) of this article are: Ethical issues that arise with AI systems as objects, i.e., tools made and used (...) by humans. This includes issues of privacy (§2.1) and manipulation (§2.2), opacity (§2.3) and bias (§2.4), human-robot interaction (§2.5), employment (§2.6), and the effects of autonomy (§2.7). Then AI systems as subjects, i.e., ethics for the AI systems themselves in machine ethics (§2.8) and artificial moral agency (§2.9). Finally, the problem of a possible future AI superintelligence leading to a “singularity” (§2.10). We close with a remark on the vision of AI (§3). - For each section within these themes, we provide a general explanation of the ethical issues, outline existing positions and arguments, then analyse how these play out with current technologies and finally, what policy consequences may be drawn. (shrink)

The ethical issues related to the possible future creation of machines with general intellectual capabilities far outstripping those of humans are quite distinct from any ethical problems arising in current automation and information systems. Such superintelligence would not be just another technological development; it would be the most important invention ever made, and would lead to explosive progress in all scientific and technological fields, as the superintelligence would conduct research with superhuman efficiency. To the extent that ethics is (...) a cognitive pursuit, a superintelligence could also easily surpass humans in the quality of its moral thinking. However, it would be up to the designers of the superintelligence to specify its original motivations. Since the superintelligence may become unstoppably powerful because of its intellectual superiority and the technologies it could develop, it is crucial that it be provided with human-friendly motivations. This paper surveys some of the unique ethical issues in creating superintelligence, and discusses what motivations we ought to give a superintelligence, and introduces some cost-benefit considerations relating to whether the development of superintelligent machines ought to be accelerated or retarded. (shrink)

[This is the short version of: Müller, Vincent C. and Bostrom, Nick (forthcoming 2016), ‘Future progress in artificial intelligence: A survey of expert opinion’, in Vincent C. Müller (ed.), Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence (Synthese Library 377; Berlin: Springer).] - - - In some quarters, there is intense concern about high–level machine intelligence and superintelligent AI coming up in a few dec- ades, bringing with it significant risks for human- ity; in other quarters, these issues are ignored or considered science (...) fiction. We wanted to clarify what the distribution of opinions actually is, what probability the best experts currently assign to high–level machine intelligence coming up within a particular time–frame, which risks they see with that development and how fast they see these developing. We thus designed a brief questionnaire and distributed it to four groups of experts. Overall, the results show an agreement among experts that AI systems will probably reach overall human ability around 2040-2050 and move on to superintelligence in less than 30 years thereafter. The experts say the probability is about one in three that this development turns out to be ‘bad’ or ‘extremely bad’ for humanity. (shrink)

In the past few years, the subject of AI rights—the thesis that AIs, robots, and other artefacts (hereafter, simply ‘AIs’) ought to be included in the sphere of moral concern—has started to receive serious attention from scholars. In this paper, I argue that the AI rights research program is beset by an epistemic problem that threatens to impede its progress—namely, a lack of a solution to the ‘Hard Problem’ of consciousness: the problem of explaining why certain brain states give rise (...) to experience. To motivate this claim, I consider three ways in which to ground AI rights—namely: superintelligence, empathy, and a capacity for consciousness. I argue that appeals to superintelligence and empathy are problematic, and that consciousness should be our central focus, as in the case of animal rights. However, I also argue that AI rights is disanalogous from animal rights in an important respect: animal rights can proceed without a solution to the ‘Hard Problem’ of consciousness. Not so with AI rights, I argue. There we cannot make the same kinds of assumptions that we do about animal consciousness, since we still do not understand why brain states give rise to conscious mental states in humans. (shrink)

I would like to thank the authors of the 26 contributions to this symposium on my article “The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis”. I learned a great deal from the reading their commentaries. Some of the commentaries engaged my article in detail, while others developed ideas about the singularity in other directions. In this reply I will concentrate mainly on those in the first group, with occasional comments on those in the second. A singularity (or an intelligence explosion) is a rapid (...) increase in intelligence to superintelligence (intelligence of far greater than human levels), as each generation of intelligent systems creates more intelligent systems in turn. The target article argues that we should take the possibility of a singularity seriously, and argues that there will be superintelligent systems within centuries unless certain specific defeating conditions obtain. (shrink)

This book reports on the results of the third edition of the premier conference in the field of philosophy of artificial intelligence, PT-AI 2017, held on November 4 - 5, 2017 at the University of Leeds, UK. It covers: advanced knowledge on key AI concepts, including complexity, computation, creativity, embodiment, representation and superintelligence; cutting-edge ethical issues, such as the AI impact on human dignity and society, responsibilities and rights of machines, as well as AI threats to humanity and AI (...) safety; and cutting-edge developments in techniques to achieve AI, including machine learning, neural networks, dynamical systems. The book also discusses important applications of AI, including big data analytics, expert systems, cognitive architectures, and robotics. It offers a timely, yet very comprehensive snapshot of what is going on in the field of AI, especially at the interfaces between philosophy, cognitive science, ethics and computing. (shrink)

This paper attempts to formalize and to address the ‘leakproofing’ of the Singularity problem presented by David Chalmers. The paper begins with the definition of the Artificial Intelligence Confinement Problem. After analysis of existing solutions and their shortcomings, a protocol is proposed aimed at making a more secure confinement environment which might delay potential negative effect from the technological singularity while allowing humanity to benefit from the superintelligence.

Suppose it is 2025 and being a technophile, you purchase brain enhancements as they become readily available. First, you add a mobile internet connection to your retina, then, you enhance your working memory by adding neural circuitry. You are now officially a cyborg. Now skip ahead to 2040. Through nanotechnological therapies and enhancements you are able to extend your lifespan, and as the years progress, you continue to accumulate more far-reaching enhancements. By 2060, after several small but cumulatively profound alterations, (...) you are a “posthuman.” To quote philosopher Nick Bostrom, posthumans are possible future beings, “whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards” (Bostrom 2003c). At this point, your intelligence is enhanced not just in terms of speed of mental processing; you are now able to make rich connections that you were not able to make before. Unenhanced humans, or “naturals,” seem to you to be intellectually disabled—you have little in common with them—but as a transhumanist, you are supportive of their right to not enhance (Bostrom 2003c; Garreau 2005; Kurzweil 2005). (shrink)

As AI is linked to more and more aspects of our lives, the need for algorithms that can take decisions that are not only accurate but also fair becomes apparent. It can be seen both in discussions of future trends such as autonomous vehicles or the issue of superintelligence, as well as actual implementations of machine learning used to decide whether a person should be admitted in certain university or will be able to return a credit. In this paper, (...) we will use Dreyfus’ account on ethical expertise to show that, to give an AI some ability to make ethical judgements, a pure symbolic, conceptual approach is not enough. We also need the ability to make sense of the surroundings to reframe and define situations in a dynamic way, using multiple perspectives in a pre-reflective way. (shrink)

As Artificial Intelligence researchers attempt to emulate human intelligence and transhumanists work toward superintelligence, philosophers and theologians confront a dilemma: we must either, on the one horn, abandon the view that the defining feature of humanity is rationality and propose an account of spirituality that dissociates it from reason; or, on the other horn, find a way to invalidate the growing faith in a posthuman future shaped by the enhancements of Intelligence Amplification or the progress of Artificial Intelligence. I (...) grasp both horns of the dilemma and offer three recommendations. First, it is love understood as agape, not rational intelligence, which tells us how to live a godly life. Love tells us how to be truly human. Second, the transhumanist vision of a posthuman superintelligence is not only unrealistic, it portends the kind of tragedy we expect from a false messiah. Third, if as a byproduct of AI and IA research combined with H+ zeal the wellbeing of the human species and our planet is enhanced, we should be grateful. (shrink)